Hume & the American Deists on Miracles

In the second paragraph of his essay “Of Miracles” (Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, §10, hereafter E), Hume flatters himself with having “discovered an argument . . . which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently will be useful as long as the world endures . . . .” Many scholars concur in his assessment of his own achievement, while others find the claim overly ambitious, believing, for one reason or another, his argument to be defective. However, practically all the “wise and learned” now regard Hume’s argument as the work to be taken account of in any discussion of the reasonableness of belief in miracles. If they find his argument flawed, they most likely find belief in miracles to be reasonable, given certain conditions. In eighteenth-century America the situation was quite different; Hume’s essay was not made the object of careful scholarly assessment, nor had it become a litmus test for the veracity of testimony to preternatural happenings. In fact, it was seldom referred to at all. Given lax eighteenth-century conventions regarding scholarly attribution, this is not a reliable indication that it was not read. Certainly Hume was ranked along with Rousseau and Voltaire as one of the century’s great writers. Although much of his renown was produced by his History of England, his reputation as a notorious infidel clearly stemmed from the Natural History of Religion and the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Consequently, I shall assume that we may initially suppose that American thinkers who took an interest in alleged miraculous occurrences were probably aware of Hume’s argument even if they were not careful students of it.

Nevertheless, a number of them produce their own critiques of the miraculous. Are they neglecting Hume’s accomplishment because they wish to make theirs seem more original, or do they have goals for whose achievement Hume’s essay really does not suffice? Should we think of them as ignorant, disingenuous, or as responding to questions Hume has not adequately addressed? To make some progress toward resolving such questions I shall first summarize Hume’s argument, then examine arguments by Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine, and Elihu Palmer (who are generally acknowledged to be the three most influential American deists), and finally say something about how we may appraise their work in comparison to Hume’s.

Part I

That Hume’s “Of Miracles” has become the principal text for any discussion of that topic is due, in large measure, to its structure. Previous arguments against belief in miracles, even when specific criteria for rational belief were clearly implied, generally followed an ad hoc, case-by-case route to their goal. Further, the cases considered were normally those which were most at issue, namely those pertaining to the foundations of Christianity.1 Hume’s argument departs from this pattern. Although it contains copious references to specific miracles, these are predominately such as would not matter much to Hume’s Protestant audience, whose sympathy Hume doubtless intends to solicit with patently caustic citations of striking instances of Catholic credulity.2 More importantly, these are only examples, not the actual targets of the critique. His argument comprises two parts. The first is an epistemological analysis of the criteria for rational assent to any miracle report, given a certain understanding of what one means by ‘miracle.’ The result of this analysis is the elucidation of criteria which would have to be met for a miracle report to be reasonably regarded as even possibly true. The second part is a more or less empirical survey of the historical conditions which prevent actual miracle reports from satisfying the criteria established in the first part.

The understanding of ‘miracle’ which Hume proposes is that a miracle is “a violation of the laws of nature” (E, §10, 114). This is not supposed to be an innovative classification, since his argument can have the utility he envisages for it only if it treats of the ordinary idea of what a miracle is.3 Woolston had enunciated a similar view of the common notion of the miraculous: “A Miracle, if I mistake not the Notion of our Divines about it, is a supernatural Event, or a Work out of the Power of Nature or Art to effect.”4 Woolston seizes upon this characterization to argue that the healings and resurrections attributed to Jesus, if they occurred at all, need not have been miracles, as they could have been accomplished by completely natural means, although they would have seemed miraculous to observers ignorant of the actual aetiology. If the event as reported seems irreducibly beyond the “Power of Nature or Art to effect,” then Woolston challenges the veracity of the report, or the morality or theological soundness of the alleged action. Can our Saviour really have produced more wine for those who were already drunk? Where was Lazarus’s soul while he was dead and why would it be worthwhile to return to life from a better state, if there be such? His is a quest for the most reasonable understanding of supposedly miraculous events by analyzing the objective content reported on a case by case basis, looking willy-nilly for a likely natural explanation, for features which would make the action unworthy of a divine being, or for inconsistencies or absurdities in the stories. However, Hume sees that the characterization of ‘miracle’ as “a violation of the laws of nature" obviates this sort of inquiry into the specific character of the alleged event. One need only attend to the evidence which establishes the reliability of the report in contraposition to the evidence which supports whatever laws of nature it claims to have been violated. A reasonable believer must justify, not the occurrence of the miraculous event, but the veracity of the account of that event. The multiple criteria used by Woolston–rationality, indeed, but also theological soundness, moral acceptability, etc.–are reduced to the single criterion of reasonableness. Is it more reasonable to believe a report that a law of nature has been violated or to believe that the law of nature is really a law, i.e. that it holds in all cases, including this one?

Now, Hume is more than a little vague about what he understands by “laws of nature.” Mostly he uses this expression in reference to moral law; and almost all instances of his using the term to refer to physical law are in “Of Miracles.” On two of those other occasions, in Sections 6 and 8 of the Enquiry, he uses it to designate instances of the sort we typically intend nowadays when we refer to ‘laws of nature,’ namely the Newtonian laws of motion, which are said to be “universally allowed.”5 Unfortunately, reference to scientifically established laws of this sort is not used to frame the discussion in §10. He instead proposes paradigmatic generalizations which resonate with traditional miracle stories, such as “it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life, because that has never been observed in any age or country” (E, §10, 114). The criterion of miraculousness, as this citation suggests, is not violation of a scientifically-established rule, but departure from what has otherwise been uniform human experience. I say ‘otherwise’ on the assumption that Hume is to be read as permitting, in principle, that a miracle may have been observed. What he actually writes is that a miracle “has never been observed” and that “a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws” (ibid.), making no explicit exception for the possible occurrence of the event the testimony to which is being assessed. This has led some interpreters to see Part I of the essay as an argument for the impossibility of miracles.6

Such a reading is improbable, as it would make Part II frivolous and would explicitly contradict Hume’s explication of the relationship between seeming to be miraculous and really being so. Hume claims we can imagine clearly miraculous events, e.g. the “raising of a house or ship into the air is a visible miracle.” On the other hand, an event would be equally miraculous if it undetectably contravened a law of nature, such as would “the raising of a feather, when the wind wants ever so little of a force requisite for that purpose” (E, §10, 115, ftn.). Hume writes,

A miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent. A miracle may either be discoverable by men or not. This alters not its nature and essence. (ibid.)

That Hume italicizes this definition, and classifies it as accurate, surely indicates that he thought it important; and, on this definition, supernatural agency is essential for miraculousness and observable departure from lawfulness is not. In writing of an “invisible agent” he must mean “imperceptible agent,” since it would be arbitrary to suppose an event to be beyond the pale of scientific explanation because it fails to make an impression on just one of our several senses. However, this explication raises a problem of a different sort; for, if that be the criterion of miraculousness, clearly no miracle could ever be observed. All one sees, even in the case of his so-called “visible miracle” of the levitating house or ship, is just the startling effect, not its cause; and if it be genuinely miraculous, the cause, being supernatural, would be unobservable under any conditions.7 Miracles might, for all we know or could know, be more common than tourists in Williamsburg.

This explication makes it all the more obvious that, on Hume’s principles, if not for Hume personally, arguments about miracles can only be about our beliefs, not about the facts or true causes, for we stand in a paradoxical epistemic relationship to miraculous facts, if there really be such. I must emphasize that this reasoning is not presented by Hume, and his reference to “visible miracles” suggests that it is a commitment he did not see. An event is a miracle just in case its causes are supernatural and imperceptible; but, since its causes are supernatural and imperceptible, the event cannot be known to be a miracle rather than a natural event. However, we could have testimony to an occurrence contrary to all our personal experience and to the experience of mankind so far as we are informed of it, and incapable of being explained, as described, by established physical science. That is, we could have testimony to an occurrence which we should have to regard as physically impossible. Testimony that the event was a miracle could be dismissed outright since, as we have seen, no one could possibly observe that. Testimony that an event of an inexplicable sort had occurred would have to be considered, however; and one who believed the testimony would have to believe that a miracle had occurred.8 Hume says we must weigh the evidence which would rule out the occurrence of such an event against the evidence that supports the veracity of the testimony, and that a “wise man, therefore proportions his belief to the evidence” (E, §10, 110). He concedes that there could be a miracle story whose credentials were such that “the testimony, considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof” (E, §10, 114).9 This supposedly infallible testimony is counterbalanced by a uniform experience which also counts as “a direct and full proof” against the occurrence of such events, since the alleged event simply does not occur “in the common course of nature.” Hume’s unforgettable conclusion is that one would be entitled to believe that the miracle occurred as reported only if it would be more miraculous to believe the testimony false than to accept the miracle as fact. Although he does not proclaim it, that is precisely what one who held Scripture to be infallibly inspired would maintain. Supposing that no testimony could be better authenticated than a “law of nature,” he claims that even the strongest conceivable case for the occurrence of a miracle results merely in “a mutual destruction of arguments,” (E, §10, 115). 10

Part II

Although theoretically testimony to a miracle might then exactly balance the evidence for an invariant natural relation, Hume cites four circumstances which necessitate that any historical record of a miracle fall far short of that. (1) The witnesses never possess all the traits which authenticate testimony–“good sense, education, and learning,” “undoubted integrity,” and “such credit and reputation” that they would not risk exposure and ridicule. (2) Since “surprise and wonder” are agreeable emotions, people tend to believe amazing stories just for the thrill. Those who browse the literature at the supermarket checkout lane might dub this “propensity of mankind toward the marvelous” the ‘tabloid newseffect.’ (3) Present-day miracles seem to occur primarily “among ignorant and barbarous nations” and stories of ancient ones have been preserved by authority from the ignorant and barbarous times in which they originated. (4) Since miracle stories are presented as evidence for some religious persuasion, each is countered by all the miracle stories of all of the competing religions, which are evidence for other, incompatible, religious systems. Once we factor in these considerations, we can conclude that “no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability,” and that “no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle and make it a just foundation for any such system or religion” (E, §10 116―7).

Hume provides two illustrations, which, unfortunately, illustrate his rather fuzzy concept of natural law. The first is that all historians and traditions of all nations should “agree, that, from the first of January 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days . . .” In this case Hume recommends accepting the testimony as certain and getting on with investigating the causes of this remarkable event, because the “decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature, is an event rendered probable by so many analogies . . .” The hypothesized event is indeed marvelous but is not miraculous. The second is that all historians should report that Queen Elizabeth died on that same day and that, after being interred for a month, she returned and reigned for three more years. He says that he would have no inclination to believe “so signal a violation of the laws of nature” (E, §10, 127―8). I think I know how he reaches these conclusions. None of the four conditions which prevent testimony from amounting to an “entire proof” apply to the first example. The testimony is uniform among people of diverse character, including those who are most intelligent and informed and those whose judgment is least affected by the excitement of the marvelous; he thinks it would have less tabloid newseffect than a resurrection story; it is uniform among diverse cultures, including the most enlightened ones; and, perhaps most crucially, it is uniform among diverse religious persuasions, so that none has a unique claim to use the “miracle” as sectarian evidence. Nevertheless, his reasoning is appalling. People have revived from cataleptic states in which they seemed dead. The revivification of a woman after 30 days would doubtless be unprecedented; but since life is not all that well understood, it is difficult to say just what laws of nature, if any, would be violated. On the other hand, the extinction and subsequent rekindling of countless stars, the temporary total opacity of the atmosphere, or a week-long strike by the universe’s photons would vitiate practically the whole of physical science. Had radiant warming and photosynthesis been shutdown for an entire week in 1600, having philosophers around in 1748 to investigate that curious occurrence would have required yet another miracle. Given Hume’s criterion, he and anyone else willing to believe the testimony to such an event should believe it to be a miracle, pending a revolution in physical theory.

Only in his last two paragraphs does Hume explicitly confront the Bible and Christian faith, and even there in a manner which has permitted some otherwise astute historians to believe he has opened the door to fideism.11 He finds some of the fantastic events recorded in Genesis and Exodus to be unbelievable if we approach those books, “not as the word or testimony of God himself, but as the production of a mere human writer and historian” (E, §10, 129). Although we may reasonably suppose that he envisages a wider application for his argument, it is expressly limited to that small number of “pretended Christians,” who believe the Pentateuch can be defended as sound secular history.

Ethan Allen

Prior to the publication of Ethan Allen’s Reason the Only Oracle of Man in 1784 (hereafter, ROOM), American deism was a cautious affair, confined to intellectuals even more chary than Hume of overtly criticizing the doctrines of revealed religion. Jefferson’s view that Jesus was the first and best deistic moral teacher is representative.12 Allen, however, openly attacks Christian doctrines and their supporting grounds as part of his contribution to “reforming mankind from superstition and error” (ROOM 23). Rarely has a good word has been spoken for this work, which is neither scholarly nor carefully argued, and is indeed “ponderous and repetitious.”13 In his Preface, Allen acknowledges working from his youthful notebooks, assisted only by “Bible and a Dictionary,” and denies ever having read the works of deists.14 Although crudely crafted, the book has some merits, even occasional moments of originality, such as the idea that the fundamental form of religious awareness is humankind’s sense of “absolute dependence on something out of and manifestly beyond themselves” (ROOM 25 ff.). This seems to anticipate Schleiermacher, although Allen does not develop the idea, his interest being to determine the divine attributes rather than to explore the nature of religious experience.

Chapter VII of ROOM is devoted to miracles; and there Allen, like Hume, accepts the common conception of miracles as events which are “opposed to, and counteract the laws of nature” (ROOM 233). Among the arguments he presents against such events, one is especially noteworthy. Although neglected by his successors, it is more powerful and far more concise than Hume’s.15 Like Hume’s, it has the merit of being epistemological, i.e. it does not depend on disputable metaphysical or theological assumptions. Herewith the entire argument:

Those things in nature which we do understand, are not miraculous to us, and those things which we do not understand, we cannot with any propriety adjudge to be miraculous.16 (ROOM 254)

Allen’s argument targets first-hand experience of “miraculous” phenomena rather than the testimony critiqued by Hume. But it surely applies to testimony, since any claim that a miracle had been experienced could be translated into a claim that something not understood had been witnessed. In effect, the distinction Hume makes between ‘marvelous’ and ‘miraculous’ events would have no practical application. Hume’s belief that there could be ‘visible miracles’ (which we have seen to be inconsistent with application of his exact definition of miracle as supernaturally caused) would, from Allen’s perspective, be undermined by the very awesomeness and inexplicability which make a ‘ visible miracle’ appear miraculous. For Allen, ‘miracle’ is a paradoxical classification; if xseems miraculous to me, then I cannot possibly know that x is miraculous. I find it hard to object to this reasoning.17

Allen continues by explaining that there could not possibly be any “evidence of a miracle” unless (1) we fully understood the relevant natural laws governing the particular phenomena at issue and (2) we had “certain knowledge” that those laws had been “suspended . . . [and] superceeded by new ones” (ROOM 255). This idea of replacing laws, to which Allen recurs repeatedly, may seem puzzling. Why should the occasional suspension of a law entail its supercession by another law? To cure the puzzlement, we must remind ourselves that Allen is a deist. He conceives the laws of nature to be divinely instituted; and, conversely, those laws just are the causal order God wills. (If a creator God actually exists, must not this be right?) If, then, the laws connecting any cause to its normal effect are overridden by God, God has willed a different arrangement of the relevant causes and effects. Since that new pattern is the way those events must be connected, even if only for a short time, that order is the then operative natural law. Thus, his reasoning is that to identify an event as miraculous one must be “perfectly acquainted” with what would be natural under both the original and the successor laws–a rather tall order even for “the greatest philosophers of the age” (ibid.).

At this juncture this epistemological objection, whose force is independent of the addition, can be buttressed by a metaphysical reductio.18 If natural laws are legislated by God, only God can repeal them. (Consequently, Allen would reject what Hume, for whom laws may be only regularities, allows–that a miracle could be due to “the interposition of some invisible agent” other than God.19) However, to think that he should do so leads to unacceptable consequences. We should have to replace the syllogism

As a reductio, clearlyAllen’s conclusion that this “preponderates against miracles” holds only for persons who affirm that God exists, is perfect, and is the author of natural law.20

Allen does not let the fact that he has offered apparently conclusive arguments interfere with his tendering others. One of these is essentially identical to, and is expressed in the same terms as, the third circumstance Hume cites as reducing the credibility of miracle testimony: “where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in such parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue” (ROOM 265). Since this is the sole occurrence of the phrase ‘barbarous and ignorant’ in ROOM, it may testify to Allen’s having read Hume, although it is certainly not conclusive.21 There are three other objections, whose predominately theological nature is perhaps sufficient reason why their like is not found in Hume. The first of these is that even if miracles were worked by the founders of Christianity, that does not authenticate the claims of their successors, since they may have “corrupted [the original revelation] . . . or altered it to answer their own sinister designs, and thereby provoked God to withdraw from them the power of working miracles” (ROOM 263―4). Present-day clergymen propounding revealed truths need present-day miracles, performed publicly and open to scientific investigation. The second objection turns Holy Writ against its defenders, noting that Christ warns us to beware of false teachers and provides criteria for identifying the true ones, namely that they will, in his name, cast out devils, speak in new tongues, heal the sick, and be utterly unharmed by venomous snakes or poisonous drinks.22 Allen proposes a simple test–he will accept the divine authority of anyone who can survive a dose of deadly poison he has prepared; and if they refuse, their faith must not be as firm as they profess. Thirdly, just because miracles are “mysterious, and altogether unintelligible,” they cannot be the vehicles of any meaningful communication. If miracles might authenticate the messenger’s mission, they could not aid us at all in correctly understanding his message. They “might astonish us” but they cannot inform us about “truth and falsehood, right and wrong, justice and injustice, virtue and vice, or moral good and evil,” all of which we should still have to investigate by “reason and argument, the old and only way of exploring truth and distinguishing it from falsehood” (ROOM 268―9). In other words, if they occur, they can only obfuscate rather than enlighten.

An intriguing feature of Allen’s discussion of miracles is that he devotes the final, and longest, section of Chapter VII to (petitionary) prayer.23 If God be omniscient, prayer is, to be sure, “no part of a rational religion”; but that is only his first objection. Either prayer can initiate some change in the natural order or it can not. If it can, then its actually being heeded by God is miraculous; effective prayer is subject to all the objections pertaining to miracles. If it can not, it is “not only useless, but impertinent . . . laziness . . . murmuring against God” (ROOM 275―6). In lieu of Franklin’s cautious and ambiguous “God helps those who help themselves,” Allen argues that the only way God helps us is through the natural means we find at our disposal and that to suppose otherwise is bad science, bad theology, and a sure indication of impiety.

Only in the concluding chapter of the work (Ch. XIV) does Allen explicitly deal with “historical testimony” to miracles, as opposed to treating the possibility of miracles directly. Hume’s tactic is to impeach testimony to miracles by showing that it lacks those traits which normally lead us to believe what we are told. So, when he explicitly attacks the Bible in the penultimate paragraph of §10, he eschews evaluating its status as revelation, only observing that, as history, it is far more likely that the stories it contains are false than that the events related should actually have occurred. Allen takes a more forthright and deductive tack. He observes that, for the most part, the “antiquated history of miracles” is designed to authenticate the alleged revelation contained in the scriptures. One of the reasons this project fails is that those same scriptures are, circularly, the principal testimonies to miraculous events. Another, more interesting, reason is that rather than the miracles substantiating scripture, scripture discredits the miracle stories. We would instantly dismiss testimony that two plus three was four or that virtue was red, since what is asserted is absurd. In previous chapters24 Allen believes he has demonstrated the contradictoriness and absurdity of crucial pieces of biblical revelation, such as the doctrines of original sin, imputation of righteousness, salvation by faith, the trinity, the story of Adam and Eve.25 He then reasons thus: If the miracle stories are true, then the scriptures are true; but the scriptures are manifestly contradictory, therefore the miracle stories are false.

Thomas Paine

Early on in The Age of Reason Paine distinguishes two kinds of purported miracles. Some, such as the miraculous conception of Jesus, are “not one of those things that admitted of proof,” because no experience could either confirm or discredit the story. Of course, a good many facts count against the tale’s veracity, notably that supernatural conceptions were commonly assigned to “extraordinary men” in the “heathen mythology.” Others, such as Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, “admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon . . .” That an event which could have been publicly observed is reported as witnessed only by a few, violates the principle that whatever “everybody is required to believe requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal.” This is similar to the point Hume makes through his comparison of the hypothetical resurrection of Elizabeth with the hypothetical eight days of darkness. But Paine continues by observing that the resurrection and ascension have special importance in the miracle-ridden accounts of the life of Jesus, because “the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction” to the rest of the gospel story. He could have written more explicitly, but the implication seems clear. His point is twofold: (1) Miracle testimony occurs in the context of stories. Only some miracles, those experienced by disinterested observers as well as to partisans, provide evidence for the truth of the story. Some of these are crucial for authenticating the story. Jesus’ resurrection and ascension belong to this class; as Paul observed, “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also vain” (I Cor. 13:14). (2) If a crucially important miracle was of the public sort and yet was not publicly performed, it strongly suggests that the entire “story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it.”26 Paine is most interested in arguing that there is no revelation, except in nature, that “THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD” and that “it is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God” (AR 482, 484).

Every science rests on “fixed and unalterable” principles which we do not make, but rather discover. He has in mind Newton’s mathematical principles, such as those whereby eclipses can be predicted, which must be “as eternal and immutable as the laws by which the heavenly bodies move . . . ” The discovery of such principles is “the true theology” (AR 487―8).27 He seems almost to echo Hume when, in defense of these principles, he rhetorically asks, “is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie” (AR 509).28 There is, however, a difference. Whereas Hume is willing to countenance “the decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature,” Paine is not. He believes science to be a body of eternal principles that we have discovered in nature, not just a collection of generalizations we have made. Here his sentiments are closer to Kant than to Hume.

The techniques for imposing a religion on mankind, according to Paine, are “mystery, miracle and prophecy. The two first are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought always to be suspected” (AR 505). Miracle is characterized, as in Hume’s essay, as “something contrary to the operation and effect of” the supposed laws of nature. But Paine emphasizes, as does Allen but not Hume, that, since we do not have a perfect knowledge of those laws and the various powers of nature, it is very difficult to ascertain whether “anything that may appear to us wonderful or miraculous” truly contravenes natural law. Although the major thrust of Hume’s critique is confined to assessing miracles second-hand, as presented in testimony, we saw that his discussion in the footnote in which ‘miracle’ is “accurately defined” both commits him to denying direct perception of a miracle because miracles have imperceptible causes as well as (possibly) to the incompatible claim that some miracles can be directly apprehended. Paine argues rather that a first-hand witness can never be sure that what was observed was authentically miraculous because no such judgment could be confidently made unless one had a perfect understanding of the relevant natural laws. He illustrates his point with events which would have seemed miraculous prior to recent scientific or technological developments: a balloon assent, sparks leaping from a person charged with static electricity, resuscitation of someone apparently drowned, and various “mechanical and optical deceptions” (AR 507―8).

Paine’s ultimate conclusion in this passage is not just that no miracle could be directly perceived to be a miracle, but that, given that misinterpretation and deception cannot be ruled out, it would be inconsistent to suppose that an omnipotent being “would make use of means such as are called miracles, that would subject the person who performed them to the suspicion of being an impostor, and the person who related them to be suspected of lying, and the doctrine intended to be supported thereby to be suspected as a fabulous invention” (AR 508). Whereas Allen had argued that miracles would be useless because they could not edify, Paine sees their inability to signify unambiguously as a contradiction in their very essence. He presupposes what Hobbes, Toland, and Berkeley had claimed explicitly, that a miracle is not just a supernaturally caused event, but is necessarily a communication.29 The issue then becomes whether a being worthy of worship could use “means that would not answer the purpose for which they were intended, even if they were real” (AR 509). Clearly not. Paine supports this answer with telling illustrations. No one would believe him if he reported that The Age of Reason was the product of a mysterious hand which suddenly appeared and proceeded to write the entire book, even if it were true. Suppose that Jonah had swallowed a whale, rather than the reverse, and had vomited up a full-size whale before the citizens of Nineveh? Would they not have more likely believed him to be the devil than a prophet of God? If miracles do occur, they would have to be the acts of “a showman, playing tricks to amuse and make the people stare and wonder” (AR 508). Further, even if, as Allen argues, only God can change natural law, that proposition is established independently, not by miracles themselves. Miracles are not autographed. Therefore, whereas Allen allows that a miracle, if it could be identified as such, would establish that the messenger was from God, although it would not help us understand the message, Paine denies that it could do even that.

Unlike Hume, Paine believes God does communicate with us in the standard deistic manner–through the “Bible of the Creation,” whose proper interpretation is the work of science and technology, not theology, which “is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion” (AR 601). He shows no sign of familiarity with considerations, like those in Hume’s Dialogues, which would weigh against his conviction that complete scientific understanding would include a knowledge of the derivation of nature from God.

Elihu Palmer

Elihu Palmer was the great evangelist of deism in America; and indeed that became his full-time occupation when, in 1793, a bout of yellow fever left him blind and unable to continue his law practice. He lectured, organized deistic societies, founded the journals The Temple of Reason and Prospect, and published numerous articles and several books, of which the most philosophical was his Principles of Nature, which first appeared in 1800.30 Although Palmer had been so unpopular among the good believers of Philadelphia that he relocated to New York, his book was very successful and subsequent editions appeared in 1802 and 1806. In a letter dated “Paris, February 21, 1802, since the Fable of Christ,” Paine congratulates Palmer on the publication of Principles of Nature, remarking that its boldness was just what was required because “Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.” This work, he says, departs from the “the hinting and intimating manner” formerly used, which “produced skepticism, but not conviction.”31 We can only conjecture how much this letter was motivated by Palmer’s description of Paine as “one of the first and best of writers, and probably the most useful man that ever existed upon the face of the earth” (PN 179).

The Humean system seems to leave both psychological and physical openings through which miracles might enter. Whether sincerely or ironically, Hume leaves room for faith at the conclusion of “Of Miracles.” As Paine says, Palmer is not so coy; faith as a commitment contrary to reason he simply defines away–“Faith is an assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition supported by evidence” (PN, p.109). All belief results from being convinced by evidence, so faith cannot be commanded nor can it be meritorious; the Christian claim to the contrary is psychologically false (ibid., 110). Whether or not to believe in a miracle is therefore, as it was for Hume, a matter of weighing of the evidence for and against the event. For Hume, the only rational course is to believe in accordance with the evidence, but for Palmer, the nature of the mind is such that it must accept the alternative which it deems to have the weightier support. Assent to the Christian stories was only possible because “the whole science of physics was denied the privilege of liberal inquiry and discussion” (PN 117), so that scientific evidence was not adequately considered. So much for the psychological side. On the physical side, the Parmenidean principle that ‘out of nothing nothing comes’ is for Hume an “impious maxim of the ancient philosophy.”32 For Palmer, however, it is “among the philosophical truths which cannot be controverted,” the persistence of matter being one of its “essential properties” (PN 122―3). He also believes that the universe is a “subjected to the operation of immutable laws” which have been rendered indubitable by “mathematical science,” by which I suppose him to mean Newtonian physics (PN 133).33 Given these presuppositions, he cannot accord putative miracles even that bare possibility of equality with laws of nature which Hume allows. Since laws are inviolable and no fact can just pop into existence ex nihilo, miracles are simply impossible.

Strangely, on the page following this forceful characterization of the material world as a “theatre of certitude,” Palmer allows that the miracles alleged by Christianity “may be true” and that judging their truth requires further investigation. Although this seems contradictory, it might just be that his thought has taken a subtle turn, albeit one not clearly articulated and possibly most likely not clearly conceived. He summarizes the Christian view as claiming that God “has arrested in turn all the powerful laws of nature” (PN 134), language reminiscent of some 20th-century apologists’ attempts to bypass the conception of miracles as contrary to nature. For example, C. S. Lewis denies that miracles are violations of the laws of nature; rather, they are instances of “interference with Nature by supernatural power.”34 However, then Palmer reverts to ‘violation’ language, giving a definition of ‘miracle’ essentially identical to Hume’s stricter definition: “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, by supernatural power” (PN 135). His subsequent discussion argues against the occurrence of such departures from lawfulness but does not rule out their possibility. It is, in fact, such as would be an appropriate response to the suggestion that the author of nature inserts occasional footnotes or revisions into his great book. Palmer argues, as did Paine, more on theological than epistemological grounds, but emphasizing difficulties with the idea of a revising God rather than deficiencies of miracles as communications.

His major argument resembles one that Plato’s Socrates gives against any change in God (Rep. 2.381B―D). God, being “infinite in all his perfections,” must be supposed to have made natural laws “in the best possible manner.” To alter this order “would be to make it worse.” Granted, human mechanics modify their designs in the course of realization; but that is because they are initially ignorant of the precise consequences of each feature in that design. Since “such imperfection and want of discernment cannot be the property of a perfect being,” God could, and must, have made a universe completely accordant with his wisdom, power, and goodness. Therefore any miracle would be evidence for a contradiction in the divine attributes. Any religion which authenticates itself by appealing to the evidence of miracles simultaneously destroys “the consistent character of the author of such religion”; and consequently, “the religion itself is not worth much.” “A wonder working god, who violates his own laws, and acts inconsistently with the principles which he himself has established, is no God at all” (PN 135―6). Palmer reverts to this reasoning some six pages later, at the end of his discussion, quoting approvingly an unidentified “powerful reasoner”35 who explicitly connects the immutability of natural law with that of God. The gist of the citation is that God cannot interfere with natural law without himself being “in some degree changeable”; but since God must be eternal, he necessarily exists,36 and “is necessarily whatever he is; therefore, it is not in his own power to change himself; it is his perfection to be immutable . . .” (PN 142).

Sandwiched between the earlier and final portions of this argument, which has no parallel in Hume, is an argument very like Hume’s Part II, comparing the “credit and veracity” of alleged witnesses to the biblical miracles with the “weight of evidence drawn from the almost universal experience of the human race” in favor of invariant natural laws. It is a merit of Palmer’s version that he writes “almost universal experience” in lieu of Hume’s misleading “unalterable experience,” explicitly allowing for the possibility of the alleged exception under examination.37 He does not mention Hume, but he hauls into the witness box against miracles three of Hume’s four considerations. (1) The testimony of “those few men who relate prodigies and miracles” is undermined by the likelihood that they “were either deceived themselves, or . . . they had a design to deceive others” (PN 139). (2) “In proportion as man makes progress in physical knowledge,” miracles have given way to “plain and intelligible” events. In keeping with the more theological tenor of his critique, Palmer–perhaps influenced by Allen–adds that Christianity is, if anything, more in need of miracles now than ever. If they were needed to establish the religion, they are needed to preserve it; and “there should be a constant string of miracles in every age and in all countries . . .” (PN 140). (3) The Christian miracles are refuted by the miracles of competing religions–“There is as much reason to believe Mahomet as to believe Moses and Jesus, and their apostles and followers” (PN 141). Here again he adds a special argument against Jesus’ miracles–“If the Jews demanded the death of Jesus, his miracles are at once annihilated in the mind of every rational man” (PN 141).38 His point is that whatever wonders Jesus performed were not such as to convince even his contemporaries, else they would have been in awe of him. If Palmer is following Hume’s text, the missing consideration–the effects of a innate human appetite for “the extraordinary and marvelous”–is probably omitted deliberately.39 Palmer is, after all, an evangelist for reason; he thinks that the “charms and deceptions of legerdemain tricks” have already lost much of their influence and that the cultivation and dissemination of scientific knowledge will progressively enlarge the influence of rationality even among the vulgar, for whom Hume held little hope. I think he would suppose that the tabloid newseffect could eventually be replaced by the delights of scientific discovery.

Conclusion

Although there are a number of passages, such as this last one, which may have been inspired by Hume, the evidence is hardly conclusive. The British deists were almost certainly more significant influences on these Americans. Voltaire probably had a significant effect,40 and Palmer was certainly inspired by Volney’s much-admired Ruins (1791). Nor should one underestimate their ability to draw conclusions from the much-read works of Newton and Locke which had eluded those authors themselves.41 What emerges from the comparison is less evidence of indebtedness than support for the judgment that their largely neglected critique comes off rather well when compared with Hume’s. Certainly none of them produce any reasoning nearly as well-structured and systematically developed as Hume’s. Nor do any of their productions approach Hume’s in eloquence or literary merit. However, they arguably have a better understanding of the concept of natural law in the new physics than does Hume; certainly they would never tolerate analogical arguments for the decay or corruption of the natural order. They have a firm grasp on the idea that if miracles are fundamentally evidence for religion, then their adequacy “to the purpose for which they were intended,” as Allen puts it, is of prime importance. Therefore, they do not neglect the untoward religious implications of belief in miracles.

This fits well with their having a goal that Hume did not, manifest in the fact that they direct their arguments to the general public and not just to the republic of letters. They are trying to use reason to destroy the clergy’s power to propagate superstition. Koch (p. 75) quotes from a contemporary sermon by Robert Hall which congratulates Hume, Bolingbroke, and Gibbon for having enough sense to direct their doubts only to “the more polished classes.” Hume indeed seems to subscribe to the common upper-class belief that freethinking was only for the gentry1. Perhaps divesting the masses of their superstitions is not desirable. Hume probably sees the elimination of superstition as leading to atheism rather than deism; and, despite Bayle’s defense of the morality of atheists and his own view that morality does not require theological justification, he may view atheism among the vulgar as leading to lawlessness.42 In contrast, the Americans are so confident that deism will triumph that they seem oblivious to its weaknesses, despite the prominence of the likes of Hume, d’Holbach, and Diderot.43 They do think there are sound arguments for the existence of God (principally variants of the design argument). That Paine and Palmer do not respond to objections to these arguments may be due more to strategy than to unfamiliarity. There were not legions of atheists available for conversion to deism; and superstition, which suppresses scientific inquiry and free expression, has more ruinous social consequences.44

Hume may believe that a general loss of religious belief would have deleterious social consequences, but he certainly believes in that innate propensity for the marvelous which only the philosophical few can control.45 Whether it be desirable or not, the masses cannot be cured of superstition. Numerous passages show him to be as pessimistic as Plato about the intellectual abilities of the vulgar, in sharp contrast to Tindal’s contention that “The Bulk of Mankind, by their Reason, must be able to distinguish between Religion and superstition . . .”46 Allen, Paine, and Palmer, like Tindal and their compatriot and fellow deist Jefferson, have more respect for the reasonableness of ordinary citizens. Allen writes to “reclaim mankind from their ignorance and delusion,” and to help them “rid themselves of their blindness and superstition” (ROOM 24―5). Paine is confident that “when opinions are free, either in matters of government or religion, truth will finally and powerfully prevail” (Paine, 604). Palmer believes that “reason, which is the glory of our nature, is destined eventually, in the progress of future ages, to overturn the empire of superstition . . . then the empire of reason, of science, and of virtue, will extend over the whole earth . . .” (PN 262―3).Counterpoised to Hume’s darker vision, these men share an optimism about human rationality and see its eventual triumph in the dawning age of reason as entirely beneficial. We have yet to ascertain whose discernment was more accurate.

This emphasis on the social utility of enlightenment is added to, not substituted for, the epistemological concerns they share with Hume. In fact, looking back over all these arguments, I cannot but think that the most elegant, and most convincing, of the lot was penned by that “great clodhopping oracle of man,”47 Ethan Allen: if we understand it, it’s no miracle; and if we don’t, we can’t reasonably claim that it is.